Obama calls for continuing tax cuts for middle class

WASHINGTON - Facing big Democratic losses in November, President Barack Obama blamed Republicans and election-year politics Friday for thwarting his efforts to do more to spur a listless national economy. He challenged Congress to quit squabbling and quickly approve "what we all agree on" - a reprieve for expiring tax cuts for the middle class.

"Let's work on that. Let's do it," he told a nationally broadcast White House news conference, his first since last May.

Obama said his economic programs were helping, but "the hole the recession left was huge and progress has been painfully slow." Noting the stubbornly high jobless rate, Obama acknowledged that many voters in the Nov. 2 midterm elections probably will blame him for economic hard times and could take it out on congressional Democrats.

He said that "since I'm the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it's understandable that people are saying, you know, 'What have you done?' " Still, he said, "If the election is about the policies that are going to move us forward versus the policies that will get us back into a mess, then I think the Democrats will do very well."

Polls suggest large-scale Republican victories and Democratic losses in the midterm races.

Obama pressed his case for Congress to renew most of the tax breaks enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush that are set to expire at the end of this year. But the president and Democratic congressional leaders want to end the cuts for the nation's wealthiest - households earning over $250,000 a year, or over $200,000 for single filers.

Republicans want all the cuts extended, saying the economy is too fragile to be raising taxes for anyone, and some Democrats have suggested a compromise - extending all the cuts but just for a year or two.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, who probably would become House speaker if Republicans win control on Election Day, called Obama's presentation full of "halfhearted proposals and full-throated political attacks" that wouldn't end the uncertainty keeping many businesses from creating jobs.

Republicans have recently united around a proposal by Boehner to cut domestic spending to 2008 levels and freeze all tax rates for two years, an idea he suggested Obama has ignored. "This is a plan Congress can and should act on this month," Boehner said.

Aside from the economy, Obama also used his 75-minute long East Room news conference to warn that a plan by "the individual down in Florida" to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by burning copies of the Quran could cause "profound damage" to U.S. troops and interests around the world.

It was a reference to the Rev. Terry Jones, pastor of a small, fundamentalist church in Gainesville, Fla.

After triggering outrage around the world, Jones said Thursday he would cancel the burning but later said he was reconsidering.

Obama said he hoped the pastor "prays on it and refrains from doing it."